When a nobel author claims to be the best

Dagolas and wellthatsnice, feel free to ignore the thread.

Australis, I think you do have a point. I believe power corrupts and fame is a form of power. Eitherway, I am not really talking about me or about presenting myself. I am talking about my work. Should people choose to stop judging me, I believe the discussion would be more interesting and less heated.

Why caring about who I am? I already said I am not an arrogant person, but let's say I am... why would people care? I don't even live in your neiborhood, not even in USA, and nobody here have even seen my face. I couldn't be more random and insignificant to all of you, yet, the responses I get "I think you are..." show me that people are still trying to find out about me and ignoring the points I'm making.

plothog, my goal is to motivate third parties to review my work. The idea I have to do this is by sharing little by little pieces of information like what I have shown here. If you have any suggestion as how to get the attention of literary critics, magazines and so on, please share.

My concern, which should be everyone's concern too, is that there are so many novels and so many authors that... the risk of being completely ignored is more than likely. It is almost certain, no matter how good or interesting your novel is.

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Back on topic, I mentioned the novel has a deep structural work. Let's talk about it.

The first thing you need to know is that there is a prologue and an epilogue. Then the novel itself is divided in three acts, each one formed by ten chapters. No more, no less. This is because when I was working on this book my aproach always adjusted to an strict aesthetical critera related to numbers and to their meaning in teology, something you can also find in Tolkien's novels, for example.

The prologue and the epilogue represent the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the Father and the Son and so on. The three acts in which the novel is segmented refer to the perfection of God and to the Trinity, as well as the perfection the novel has pursued since its conception.

Each act has a name: The Sun, The Moon and The Stars, making reference to Catholicism, Islamism and Judaism respectively.

Finally, the inner organization of each act pretends to be identical in each case, in the sense that the chapters can be grouped thematically following the pattern: (2 + 3) + (3 + 2) = 10. Let's see:



This is the kind of information I would be sharing during my campaign, of course, with a more elaborated explanation and direct references to the novel and how this structure can be extracted from its pages, along with some other organization critters that I used during the conceptualization of the novel that add to the main structure as reinforcements.

However, I believe at this point it is more than evident the ambition of the architecture I'm decribing, since something like this is completely out of the ordinary.

The structure I am describing is chimeric by being capable of producing the appearance of an extraordinary simplicity and simetric harmony when analized independently, something that seems unconceivable if we start from the premise that the actual text is the result of creativity and of sevel investigative frameworks that also must have the characteristics of an eschatological study that should work as a force jacket, making impossible such an elaborated planning that could result in a similar structure, unless I would have decided to make serious sacrifices in favor of order.

Having carried the whole theory of seven frameworks in an structure so harmonious that, as I said, could seem unviable or even weak for an story telling, proves that this is actually practical and robust enough to sustain a very dense narrative that, far from limiting to taking the whole Earth as a stage, has a total of four existential planes of existence, of which the world, with its hundred and twenty years of history, is just one. Everything was achieved without the need of sacrificing any aspect, with the sole exception of my social life.

The prologue and epilogue are linked elements that constitude an extra that goes way beyond fanciness or harmony, so I think I will talk about them later on.

 

From a reality TV standpoint, i'm not sure you understand the psychology behind why people watch. Most of those shows are popular because people want to watch "TV people" who are such F up's, that it allows them to feel like they are actually doing ok. Thats why American Idol, the most popular episodes are always the early season auditions. Audiences want to watch people fail so that they can feel better about themselves. In the dating shows, the care about the watching the people get eliminated and break down "yeah im single, but at least i didn't just get dumped on National TV." Eventually society always turns on these people, and will eventually tear apart their lives. You do not want to be these types of people. They almost always end up penniless and alienated from everyone.

Most of the people who actually make it and become famous DO NOT start off brash and crude. They normally start off humble and nice (though normally very confident). Then they get famous, and the fame changes them. There is a reason why people who get famous later in life are normally much happier and handle it better than young people. Older people have more experience in normalcy to balance out the insanity of Hollywood. Watch most of those celebrity rise and fall shows and they all start the same way.

 

Well isn't the character described as bucktoothed, bushy haired and ugly in the books? I know ive heard fans complain that while she acted brilliantly she seemed far to pretty for the role. Also, isn't the character based on Rowling? So i could imagine that she would have an attachment to her...and in that context the ugly remark seems more self deprecating.

edit: actually searched her comments on emma and found this link

 

I 100% agree to your previous post (number 77).

 

It is unfortunately close to impossible to get the attention of magazine reviews etc until either you're traditionally published or until you've had phenomenal self published sales figures. Magazine quotes can be useful for maintaining sales once you've already achieved some success already. They're not a means for getting your first taste of success.
I only mentioned them because such quotes are when it's normally deemed acceptable to have lines talking about how amazing the book is, but it's not often a route open to us unpublished types unless we're related to the right people.

 

Exactly my point.

So the actual choices are to die like a silent lamb or to come out and try to get the attention of people by our own means.

 

"I can't take critiscism, so leave."

I don't think Freud even coined a psychological word for this kind of level of arrogance, you've passed that milestone.

 

Wrong. Muggle, a popular word from the early 19th century, and also the 1920's means a ignorant or stupid person, and also means a marijuana joint. In a number of HP translations, the word fool was used.

No, if I were to collect quotes or examples, it'd be for authors I liked, such as Angie Sage.

 

You appear to be telling yourself that claiming to be the best author in history is your best shot at getting published. But it's not. It reduces your chances of getting published. It essentially ensures that you will not get published, that you'll rarely, perhaps never, even get the opportunity to submit a manuscript.

And there's a psychological benefit to that. It ensure that you won't get the opportunity to fail. It eliminates the risk of getting your feelings hurt. If no one ever even looks at your work, you can tell yourself that the world fails to recognize your genius, and that your lack of success isn't your fault.

It's cotton-batting wrapping for your feelings. It's riding that exciting new car ride at Disney, instead of actually driving a car.

Telling yourself that you're a genius is a strategy that's fulfilling a purpose, it's just not the purpose of making you a successful author.

If you want to get published, if you want to "try", you're going to have to take off the cotton batting and risk some blows to your ego. You'll have to stop trying to persuade agents and publishers that you're the best author in all of history, and try to persuade them that you might, just might, be a pretty good author worth publishing. And then try to learn what might take you a pretty good author worth publishing. Try to learn what might give you a sufficient reputation that your very non-standard book might have a shot at being published. You might need to try to get other publishing credits first.

I understand that you're afraid of failure; pretty much everyone is. But right now, you're guaranteeing failure, a comfortable failure that allows you to call yourself a misunderstood genius.

If you really want to try, make it a realistic try. Stop shielding yourself with guaranteed failure.

 

Well as I said previously, no-one is arguing against promoting your work. The debate is about whether your particular methods will help or hinder.

 

I'm not seeing why calling an actress pretty makes her a bad person?

 

ChickenFreak, I am talking about a promotional strategy once the book is published and I also said I did not approach editorials with any of this. I made standart letters and pointed at a few nice stuff of the plot and whatever, but so far I've been rejected. I also addressed that in my opinion the cause of this is that publishing houses are not looking at cerebral-deep-innovative manuscripts. They want stuff that's easy to read and that can capture the attention of young audiences.

ploghog, that's exactly what I am interested in and that's why I came here to discuss the subject. I'm sort of conducting a test to see how persuasive my arguments can be.

Talking about arguments, here is the first page of the story; it is in Spanish and I used a small capture just to illustrate a few strategies I used, so don't pay attention to the content of the page.



If you look at the centered two italic paragraphs bellow the title, you'll notice it's sort of an eye candy element right there. This is something I call "Introductory Songs", sort of a rough translation, but whatever. Let's call it INT for brevity sake.

INT can be found at the beginning of each one of the 30 chapters, as well as in the prologue and epilogue. It's something like a "trademark" of the novel. If you want to get an idea of what I put in INTs, well, it works like this: this is a chorus of seven angels that look at what happens on Earth with contempt, so what you read is what this angels are thinking, written in an old way, sort of like King James' biblical style of speech. This should work as a mistery and as an invitation to read the chapter with curiosity to find out the real meaning of the enigmatic INTs.

Cool idea, right? Well, I've been told by a bunch of people that they love the INTs and I think they do work just fine. It is an inclusive literary strategy in the sense that takes into consideration what happens in the mind of the reader.

Is not just the misterious part that somehow may resemble an oracle or a prophecy, it is not the ancient tone I use. There is something else I noticed and generously implemented: the italics!

If you look at that page I use italics to quote "Sea la luz" (this is God saying: "Let it be the light"). Reason is pretty simple: the eye is naturally attracted to italics because the whole page is in a regular format, so italics are notoriously different and help to increase the attention of the reader. In other words, the use of italics is in each dialogue in this novel, which helps me to intuitively differenciate conversations from the narrative. This is very useful because in this novel there are not actual dialogues but "speeches" that can be longer than one page and that come in several paragraphs, so the italics also serve to avoid any possible confusion.

Finally, the big "E". This is not just at the beginning of the first paragraph. It is also placed inside the chapter, as chapters are fragmented in sections, thanks to the use of capital big letters.

This is meant to indicate the reader can do a pause at the end of a fragment and resume reading at a later stage but it also serves to browse and easily find anything of interest if desired, not to mention it also points to be another eye candy feature.

Sounds weird? If you had this novel in your hands and give it a try, you may notice there is a different feeling in it just because of this features, and they help to make the novel memorable. You would remember that novel with INTs and italics as something different and somehow unique, even if you don't know the strategy behind the whole thing.

There is not a foot note in the first page, but I mentioned I used foot notes as well on a previous post. This is another relevant trademark of Apotheosis.

 

You know that that page is not in standard manuscript format, right? That's likely to get you dumped before anyone starts to read.

 

This person seems to have contracted the Kanye West disease... poor guy

 

I never heard about that. Editorials only request double space and Times 12.

 

@Augusto :
Let me go over your fears:

1. I find an editorial and my book gets published.
2. There is scarce interest in it and people don't even know it exists.
3. It sells poorly.
4. Several months later I receive my paycheck and it's 40 dollars.
5. Two years later I am asked if I want to buy the books that did not sold on a cheaper price.
6. I throw myself into a bed feeling like a loser, pick a bottle and bury my pain in alcohol.
7. Whenever my son grows up a little and asks me who I am, I will tell him "I'm nothing".
8. Whenever my wife asks me what happened with the novel I will tell her: "I failed".
9. Whenever someone ask me what did I do to avoid failure I will tell them: "I did nothing, I just shut my mouth and waited for a miracle, which of course didn't happen, because chances to become a successful writer are one in a billion and I never won any lotery price".
10. I die... eventually, after years of feeling bad about myself and resented to that world that praise terrible writers and get their books turned into movies while I was completely ignored, even when I remained silent and humble.

All this may happen to you. Not all of us become JK Rowling and our books are read by millions of people the world over and are made into movies starred by half the actors and actresses from the UK. Our stories are more than likely not going to be read and studied centuries after our deaths.

What I really want out of my life, in terms of being a writer, is to be published. That's it. Despite my ego and pride saying differently, I honestly am sort of OK with being relatively obscure. If my books amount to being known only by those closest to me, the people of the various forums I go to and at the local libraries...that's OK. As Harry Potter himself once said, "I don't want fame and glory."

Aaand now this thread is making me want to go write. Gotta go.

 

Your INTs are not a new or original idea. I did the same thing with the first draft of my first novel (I was under the influence of Tolkien, who included lots of songs and poems in his novels - his INTS, I guess). When I started the second draft, my INTS were the first things to go - they just looked like affectations; just me being egotistical. Some of them were actually good, but they didn't belong in the novel. You have to be careful with things like that - to most people, they look a little ridiculous.

@Augusto, you still haven't mentioned anything about your characters, the situations they're in, or the actual story you're writing. First, you were talking about your elaborate structure; now, you're talking about typography and book design. Publishers want manuscripts in a standard format (see Shunn standard manuscript format). Note that this is just what your manuscript should look like - it doesn't represent the final book at all. The publisher will determine what your book design will look like, because they know what sells and they have a lot more experience at it than you do.

Please tell us something about the characters and their story.

 

This, more than at any other time in literary history, is utter crap. If you're out to make money, sure, but if you're out to make art there are no limits. With the ability for anyone to self-publish and the relative low cost to market, there is absolutely no excuse not to innovate if that's what you want to do. Art is not about commercial success. Money, if there is any, is a happy by-product. Most of my favourite writers were innovators who said 'fuck you' to the system and established techniques, all in a time where you needed publishers to get your work out there. Now, while it would be beneficial financially, you don't.

Not creating art because the establishment won't embrace it is both a cop out and a cowardly attitude.

Fuck the Bozos!

 

A few facts and pointers:

• You're trying to sell a style, by your words, not written since The Iliad, to a modern mainstream audience.
  
• Tolkien didn't start with The Lord of the Rings. he built his reputation with a shorter, easier to read and enjoyable work.
  
• Arrogance / over-confidence from a new author is immediately a cause for dismissal.
• Writing competitions are the best avenue for creative, different style novels to reach a more open-minded readership of experts.
• The majority of the market is people who want to be entertained, not challenged.
• Nobody is waiting for your book. Or my book. Or any new author's book.
• If not getting published or not being the greatest ever author is failure, you'd better get yourself a bottle of Vodka and tissues.
• No great author started as a great author. Many struggled for a long time and only through the coarse of their careers did they stumble across greatness.
• Many great authors never went anywhere.
• Adapt with the times. A Song of Ice and Fire is a good example of an old epic in a new style. Old styles die for a reason.
  
• Nobody gives a fuck about how much of a genius you say your work is by pointing it out. Look, isn't it great, it has 10 chapters symbolizing... zzzzzz. That's just garnish. Where is the meat?

 

Double spaced twelve pt, yes, but there is flexibility with font depending on the agent or distributor. It's less dogmatic than screenplays.

I think it looks fine to me, except italics are frowned upon and underlining is preferred to represent what will be italics in the published form.

 

minstrel: I don't really know how to make a synopsis for this novel. There are over 100 characters, the territory is enormous and the time is more than a century.

I start with an android that was kind of human and became the base for the creation of mecans (human-like robots). There is a war, there is a catastrophe, there is the instauration of a world government, and we get to the second phase.

Almost 35 years after the instauration of this world government appears a prophet talking about God. A few days latter the emperor is overthrown and Rome (the world capital) is destroyed.

The new emperor announces himself as the Mahdi, the mesiah of the islamic faith.

There are several important elements involved here but I don't feel like mentioning anything else. I hate spoilers. What you can expect in this novel is the depiction of human drama, love, the conflict between poor people and rich people, a view of power from the angle of the powerful, different moral dilemas... wars, apocaliptical catastrophes, sci-fi technologies, miracles, curses, angels, demons, God and Satan.

 

It's not hard.

The Iliad is set during the final weeks of the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states during the Trojan War, telling of the battles and events during those final weeks and the quarrel between King Agamemnon and his greatest warrior, Achilles.

You don't have to give all the details and all the characters, that's what the novel is for. But a summary of the basic 'what the hell is it, anyway?' should not be that hard. If you can't write that, I'd be worried.

 

If you had access to my novel you would see it is actually very hard. At least I don't think I can do it unless I do something very abstract like "the fight between good and evil" which is still pretty inacurate.

 

The Iliad is an incredibly deep and complicated story pulled apart by intellectuals for centuries with hundreds of characters, yet it can be summarized by a simpleton like me.

The fact that your story is so difficult to understand that even you can't summarize it, is a clear warning not to try and read it, to me at least. It'd do my head in.

 

It is not difficult to understand at all. It's just that it's a 120 years timeline just on earth. There are three more existential planes with their own timeline (heaven, hell and the place where dead people rest + a final one). The geography implied in this novel is really huge. It's over 100 characters and it's filled with many implications that should be enjoyable to find out, but as for summarizing it, I don't know how to do it.

Do not conflate the difficulty in making a summary with the difficulty to read or enjoy this novel. It is enjoyable and if you can read an English translation of the Iliad, you can read this novel just fine.

Not being able to make a summary of this story is not a defect of the story. If anything, it says I'm unable (maybe someone else can) or that the story is actually exceptional and too big to properly be reduced in its essence to a few lines. Again, maybe it can be done... I'm just saying I have failed over and over whenever I've attempted to do it.

There is a central stage of only 3.5 years and with a reduced stage. It is the dramatic confrontation between two brothers, both absolutely sure to hold the truth. This is right in the middle of this novel, but if I talk about it, it would be like talking about Achilles devotion to Patroclo and claiming that is a propper psinopsis of the whole novel.